[Tweeters] bird behavior - Jim in Skagit

[rrowland via Tweeters]

Hi Jim,
Thanks for your ruminations regarding bird behavior. I especially like that you are considering individuals and their behavior and not grouping species as a whole.Can you post the you tube video link again, that you referenced?
Robert 




Hi again,

   I've been mulling this topic over - pretty much continuously since I was
re-invigorated by the youtube video I posted previously.  So what I'm
thinking now is that bird behavior is a curious/fascinating mix of both
instinctual and situational thinking.

   On the instinctual side are things such as migration and courting - 
but I'm
thinking it is primarily related to those behaviors on a 'grand 
(global?) scale.
For instance - whether or not a particular species migrates - or doesn't 
... etc.
   But, there is considerable situational thinking with respect to when the
bird migrates or an individual bird's courting dance.

   We've often heard that most bird behavior is related to 1) 
availability of food,
2) sex, and 3) territory.  While I agree with that - I also recognize 
that there is a
lot of situational thinking ... for example, the trumpeter swans leave 
whereever
they spent the night and come to the fields we look out over ... but 
they don't
simply 'return to the same field they were at yesterday' - they seem to 
select
where they will land as they are flying in.  Do they "see" the potatoes 
or do
they "smell" them?  There is considerable variation in which field will 
be used
on any given day.  But they also don't go to one particular field (that 
they were
at yesterday) and pick somewhere else "today" ... and then return to that
prior field a few days later.  There is -some- movement in the middle of the
day ... but primarily if they choose a field they are there the entire 
day.  Some
small percentage of birds will leave an individual field in the late 
morning - and
some move to that same field in the same time frame ... so there are choices
being made and individual birds (or small groups) are choosing to move.
   There ae similar behaviors for other bird species - but always with a 
certain
number of individual birds making their own "situational" choices in any
given day.

   I'm a birding photographer.  One thing that is apparent to me is that
individual birds of the same species can have huge differences in terms
of how they tolerate (or don't) humans near them.  Some birds will
fly off much sooner than others.  Some even seem to pretty much
ignore the presence of humans - witness the Short-eared Owls at the
East 90 which almost seem to not care about the photogs crowding
very close to them to get that 'perfect' shot.  Sometimes.

   From where I'm standing - it seems like a huge part of this phenomenon
is our (humans) tendency to try to overlay Human intelligence/behavior
on other species.  I often hear people explaining bird behavior based
upon how a human would think/behave ... rather than simply observing
and describing the behavior(s) - and trying to see patterns in the way the
birds they see are behaving that are repeated over and over again. And
then, after considerable different observations have been made ... making
"sense" out of it.
                                                          - Jim in Skagit

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